Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) Albanian, (b) Nigerian, (c) Somalian, (d) Rwandan, (e) Chinese, (f) Vietnamese and (g) South African nationals were held in UK prisons as of (i) 30 June 2010 and (ii) 31 January 2018; and how many of those prisoners were transferred to serve their sentences in their home nation.

Any foreign national who comes to our country and abuses our hospitality by breaking the law should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them. More than 40,000 foreign national offenders have been removed from the UK since 2010, with a record number of over 6,300 removed in 2016/17.

The UK has Prisoner Transfer Agreements in place with over 100 countries and territories around the world, which includes Albania, Nigeria and Rwanda; however, transfer agreements are not in place with China or the Republic of South Africa. Furthermore, while a Prisoner Transfer Agreement is not in place with Somalia, there is a transfer agreement with Somaliland. Between the 30 June 2010 and 31 December 2017, a total of 442 prisoners were transferred from the UK to prisons around the world to serve sentences of imprisonment.

The specific information requested is set out in the table below. Please note that the prison population data quoted for 30 June 2010 and 31 December 2017 includes offenders on remand, those serving sentences for civil or financial offences, and those detained under immigration powers in prisons or in HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres, all of whom are not eligible for prisoner transfer. As such, only a proportion of the offenders in the data quoted will be eligible for transfer, and only to countries where a Prisoner Transfer Agreement is in place.